Tourism Assignment: Impact Of Adventure Sports
Question
Task: Prepare a tourism assignment on the impact of adventure sports.
Answer
Introduction
The concept of tourism discussed in this tourism assignment can be defined as collection of programs, actions, services, activities and industries that are offering travel experience comprising accommodation, transportation, food, shopping entertainment and other hospitality services (Spenceley et al., 2015). These services are offered to individuals and groups that are travelling away from home. Moreover, the term tourism can also be described as the sum of the experience and connections developed out of the interactions of the travelers host governing authorities and host social groups in the process of hosting and attaining the travelers and visitors. One of the most rapidly booming sectors for any of the economy is travel and tourism. This sector comes with various advantages for the host country but the real benefits come from its nature and the way in which it is formed and defined. The below presented report on tourism assignment is focused on the adventure sports that are considered as one of the most loved part of tourism activities. These activities comprises of various adventurous and thrilling sports for which the visitors and tourists are fond of Scuba diving, mountain biking, swimming with dolphins and viewing of gorillas are some of the most popular names. Adventure sports are the classical or traditional forms of sports with requirement of high experience and involvement of higher rate of risk. The above mentioned in this tourism assignment are some of the forms of sports for which the craze and demand is increasing day by day. The below presented analysis is executed on Scuba Diving and impacts of same on the tourism sector and the environment.
Tourism activity and its nature
Scuba diving mentioned in this tourism assignment is a form of diving underwater to get a close glimpse of the wonderful underwater world. In this the divers carry a special breathing apparatus with them which has no surface supply and it helps the divers to sustain underwater. This self contained underwater breathing equipment is known as scuba (Mason, 2015). It does not depend upon any supply from the surface. This makes it even more efficient as it aids the diver to stay underwater for a longer period of time and there are no restrictions in order to move freely. This feature makes it much more efficient than the surface supplied divers and breath-hold divers.
Normally compressed air mentioned in this tourism assignment is used generally in all the underwater diving activities. But these days as the technology is reaching for new heights every day, now instead of compressed air a new mixture known as nitrox is being used in scuba diving, it is also known as enriched air. It reduces the amount of nitrogen intake during the diving process mentioned in this tourism assignment. There are devices known as open circuit scuba systems which facilitate the process of discharge of breathing gas into the environment after exhalation. This device consists of multiple cylinders with breathing gas filled in them under high pressure; this gas gets supplied to the user with the help of regulator. In this kind of system, we may need more cylinders when cases of range extension occur or there is need for emergency supply of breathing gas or decompression gas.
There is another kind of system discussed in this tourism assignment known as closed circuit or they are also known as re-breather scuba systems (Coccossis & Mexa, 2017). The special feature of these systems is that they recycle the gas which has been exhaled. It reduces the volume of gas used as compared to open circuit system. Thus a small cylinder can be used for equal diving period. Re-breathers also help in enhancing the dive duration with less gas consumption. Hence this system is highly practical in its usage. Also, it produces few bubbles and makes very less noise. This does not disturb the aquatic animals, marine life. It is mentioned in this tourism assignment that they are also available in attractive sizes to aid the military process without getting caught. Scuba diving is very much in trend these days. These are done for professional and recreational purposes, but it has also caught the commercial sector with increasing tourism. It is very much in trend these days especially with the younger lot.
Review of environmental impacts
Scuba diving has emerged as one of the major adventurous sport in today’s time. It is a very relaxing sport and enjoyable at the same time (Patroni, Simpson & Newsome, 2018). It has various positive impacts. First of all it obviously acts as a great booster for the economy as it provides tourism. It is no longer a rare thing as it used to be. It has become much more popular with the younger generation. There is special training for scuba diving. They are special institutions for that where people are trained before they can give it a try. There are two scuba diving locations mentioned in this tourism assignment in India also. One of them is Andaman and Nicobar. So scuba diving is no more an activity restricted to few people. It greatly contributes to the economy in the modern times.
On the other hand, it is used for a lot of professional proposes also. It aids the process of study of marine life. One of the major application arenas of scuba diving is military diving. It has played various major roles in this field. It has aided many military operations since many decades and there is a big history behind it. During war, it can be used while placing mines or bomb disposals, even engineering operations. It helps in direct combat or infiltration across the enemy areas. They are also used in many civilian operations (McCool, 2016). There are special police diving teams also as mentioned in this tourism assignment which search or navigate the bodies underwater. Also this is also used by the fire department. So there is also public service diving.
Many see it as a relaxing activity or adventurous sport but it is also very good for the body, mind, soul and health. It serves many a recreational purposes; this is the main reason discussed in this tourism assignment why a lot of people are into it these days. It provides many benefits depending upon the person who is using it. For a beginner, it serves the purpose of witnessing beautiful reefs of the sea. On the other hand (Newsome & Moore, 2015), an experienced diver can travel to depths and witness nature inaccessible to laymen. It serves various health benefits also.
There are also many health benefits of scuba diving; many of which are unknown to people. It is a very lesser known fact that deep water has many healing effects on the human body. It has been proven over time by various researchers. It is noticed in this tourism assignment that underwater, body uses oxygen to repair various cuts and tears in the bodily tissues. It requires an underwater habitat for few weeks (Travaille, León & Bell, 2015). Travel has been regarded as one of the best way to learn new things. Going to new places, exploring always helps the human intellect to grow more than usual. Also during scuba diving, there is also one more important benefit which is that body gets more vitamin D due to contact with sunlight, which also improves the calcium intake of the body. It provides strength to the bones. Thus scuba diving has great health benefits.
Scuba diving mentioned in this tourism assignment contributes largely to tourism industry. It has shown a rapid growth in last two decades with over 23 million certified divers all over the world. African countries are very famous for this activity. 20% of the locations are situated in these African countries only. The increase can be seen as growth of one million per year (Agarwal, Kariyapol & Pienchob, 2019). But like every sector, this too have its own share of negative impacts. One of the major challenges is environmental degradation and also due to changing climate, this industry can face major blows.
There is phenomenon of economic downturn prevailing across the globe. This has affected every sector and has not spared the tourism sector also. People are thinking twice before spending on leisurely activities. This has caused big blow for the diving tourism, mainly diving schools.
The social and political activities mentioned in this tourism assignment also affect scuba diving. For example there is a huge decline in diving numbers in Egypt due to the prevalent political activities of that region. There is also the role of climate change (Ardoin, Wheaton, Bowers, Hunt & Durham, 2015). Due to climate change, water temperature has been rising over years and tourists avoid visiting such locations.
All these diving operations illustrated in this tourism assignment lead to environmental degradation over the years. Divers cause a very negative impact on the environment. There is both direct and indirect damage. Major reasons of it are pollution and development (Marion, 2016). Such operations also affect the marine life. There are many reckless tourists who are not sensitive enough to understand the damage they are causing to their surroundings. It can be observed that whenever any natural place is exposed to tourism, its environmental health eventually starts degrading with time. They start losing its natural beauty and ecological balance.
Many divers they know about the short term impacts of the activity they are indulging in but not the long term effects. Scuba divers face the risk of decompression, nitrogen narcosis. These are all the short term impacts (Paramati, Shahbaz & Alam, 2017). Many studies mentioned in this tourism assignment also states that there are many chances of losing life during such events due to drowning or some issue with the kind of equipment which are being used by the person. In fact many long term effects of scuba diving starts appearing gradually with time when one leaves the site.
Many studies shown that scuba diving can cause many long term effects on the body. This applies to both commercial and recreational scuba diving operations. It can be noted in this tourism assignment that in many cases, there is risk of losing hearing capability and there are chances of Osteonecrosis. Diving can cause subclinical damage to brain, spinal cord or even retina. These impacts show up gradually after diving. These factors are directly linked to diver’s health. Therefore diving academies generally test the health of the person beforehand. Proper initiatives should be taken across the globe to manage these negative impacts of scuba diving (Mason, 2015). It is a very interesting adventurous sport and should be conducted in such a way that it poses no threat to the surroundings.
What is the application of visitor impact management theory in this tourism assignment?
VIM visitor’s impact management is a management system or mechanism that is advanced for controlling the expected impact due the travelers in the surrounding that also incorporates the concept of clean production to the tourism sector by adopting sustainable goals (Azam, Alam & Hafeez, 2018). On the basis of the above executed analysis it is concluded that true effects of scuba diving should be differentiated for developing successful tactics of management. For instance, the visitor’s impact management project executed in San Andreas diving area can be considered relevant for this case. The Current coral crumbling has been ascribed to various components, including vessel port and scuba jumping rehearses. By the by, genuine impacts of scuba jumping, even should be portrayed to structure effective administration techniques not negative trading off the financial advancement neither coralline biological system wellbeing. This is especially significant in San Andres Island as of late announced as Biosphere Reserve "Sea Flower" by UNESCO. San Andres is a heaven for the scuba jumpers because of the clearness, warm temperature of its waters, its coral developments, just as the inferred attention of being a marine ensured zone.
The mechanism of VIM discussed in this tourism assignment should always be associated with the objectives of overall site management (Papageorgiou, 2016). Investigating and analyzing stages should be capable of identifying the causes of impacts for executing more intensified research and also for developing a monitoring framework if required. Traditionally the base of visitor management is perceptions and interpretations of on-the ground managers and is driven by legislative authorities and agency policy. National park management plan illustrated in this tourism assignment is one of the biggest examples of classical base. The association of partners is conceivable in the audit of important destinations, the determination of key checking pointers and gauges, and contribution to related administration techniques. Such inclusion is especially valuable if there are numerous substantial markers of inadmissible effects, where case open info can distinguish which are the most important to partners' view of the most noteworthy issues (Holden, 2016). Along these lines "customary" VIM turns out to be very like the LAC procedure, and with regards to New Zealand ensured region the executives, Conservation Management Strategy or other. Conservation board processes are considered as suitable boulevard for engaging stakeholders.
Recommendations
Tourism sector is proving a boon for the global economy and a great resource of knowledge as it provides education to wider world. Tourism activities generate revenue for the economy and offer the population a chance to preserve and protect a natural treasure or a priceless artifact. These treasuries may also be destroyed in the name of progress if not protected and preserved. The below mentioned are some of the recommendations or strategies that can be applied or adopted for minimizing the visitor’s impact:
One of the top recommended solution or strategy provided in this tourism assignment that should be implemented on priority basis for minimizing the visitor impact is restricting or making control over the number of tourist coming. Limited number of visitors will aid in bringing down the speed of wastage of resources and will also lead a time gap for restoring and preserving the wastage or deterioration of environment.
Another recommendation is making adoption of spatial strategies. A spatial regulation methodology is planned to limit the total degree of guest impacts by keeping use to constrained assigned or built up areas. Conversely, a spatial dispersal system tries to spread guest use, lessening the recurrence of utilization to levels that maintain a strategic distance from or limit lasting asset effects or guest swarming and struggle. And finally ties strategy will also aid in minimizing impacts of visitors behavior through shrewd spatial arrangement of facilities.
Conclusion
From the above executed analysis within this tourism assignment it is inferred that tourism activities have various negative and positive impacts on the environment. For better understanding a detailed description of the selected sports activity and its nature is presented. After analyzing the above presented report it is concluded that scuba diving is one of tourism activity which has various positive as well as negative impacts over the environment. And hence the negative impacts should be minimized and for the same a methodology is required to be adopted. VIM visitors’ impact management is the theory that is required to be adopted and is also recommended for managing the impacts of sports activity. Moreover, making adoption of spatial strategy is also recommended for minimizing the visitors’ impact.
References
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